


SPECtrum

by neon_noir



Category: Original Work
Genre: Cyberpunk, F/F, Original Fiction, Yumi is a gay mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 13:55:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19975183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neon_noir/pseuds/neon_noir
Summary: A surgeon, with blood on her hands, and rainbows on her mind.





	SPECtrum

**Author's Note:**

> I had one of those moments when an idea grabs hold of you and forces you to write it out, so who knows? Maybe this original fiction might actually go somewhere. Enjoy this neo-noir cyberpunk that my mind cooked up. Don’t expect updates too regularly, however, and as a last word, trigger warnings for drug usage and graphic descriptions of gore so far.

It always amazed her just how fleeting life could be. The time it took a plant’s flowers to go from bright, vivid pastel, to wilting, deadened brown would shock some people. A single pulled trigger could turn a person’s aspirations, dreams, hopes and beliefs into nothing more than a flower of blooming red, its petals splattered over whatever happened to be nearby. Something that the doctor often contemplated was that life and living were not always considered the same thing. Some would say that “I may be alive, but I’m not living.”, which was preposterous. As long as your heart was beating, and your brain was functioning, you were living. And yet, in a world of grey, some seemed to be shades brighter than their surroundings, which were constantly blanketed in dullness and dreary monotone. A syringe and bandaids couldn’t fix everything, but it could certainly add colour to the monotone world. A simple jab, a pinprick…  
  
Momentary flashes of red ; angry, blistering pain, which was then swept away by pulsating colour. As though the entire spectrum was being run through the surgeon’s eyes, and its neon colours were always nipping at the edge of her vision. Vivid, chromatic blankets covered the lights, turning the harsh fluorescents above into dreamy, muted blue. Time and time again, the doctor had found herself in this situation, passed out on a couch (which had been well-worn, down to the point that the thread was beginning to expose the cushioning inside) and with a syringe full of Prism inside her bloodstream. The dealer had claimed that it was called Prism because “it makes rainbows.” Too much could be lethal (as with any foreign substance), but right now, the surgeon didn’t care. Muted buzzing began to echo through their skull, bouncing around their thoughts, scattering her half-formed musings of the aftermath of her little trip.

It was like floating on a cloud. Weightless. Surreal. And with no restrictions on where you could go, or what you could do. It freed you from whatever kept you anchored to the Earth, and let you fly free for a few hours. To cast away the chains of guilt, fear, anger, sadness… it was priceless.

_______________

The morning after was always painful, but today, even more so. To Yumi, it felt like the side of her head had been smashed in with a sledgehammer, before being inexpertly cauterised with a firework. _The real thing would probably hurt less, at least._ Getting off the couch was a Herculean feat, requiring a two-minute break until everything stopped spinning, and a bit of self-encouraging talk. 

Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, Yumi carefully cupped a handful of the cold, running water from the sink and splashed herself in the face with it, feeling the refreshing liquid hit like a punch. It certainly helped shake off some of the fuzziness that came with the crash after taking Prism. Washing herself off more, the surgeon noted the deep bags underneath both eyes, pits of darkened skin that attested to many a sleepless night. “Jesus.” Yumi muttered out loud, splashing herself again. The matted strands of violet hair, stuck together with vestiges of sleep, came apart after she took a third self-inflicted splashing to the hair. “Ciro.” called out the surgeon, her croaky voice little more than a hoarse squeak. Yet, the dutiful house AI picked up the call to attention, and moments later, a synthesised voice echoed throughout the modest apartment. 

“ _Present, Ms. Amru. How may I help?”_

“Run the morning routine, variation B.”

The curtains whined as they began to open, thin slits of sunlight spilling through. Warm yellow illumination invaded the apartment, crawling over the many disused books, and stacked takeout boxes. Soft guitar chords filled the rooms, the staggered melody drifting throughout the apartment. As she showered, attempting to scrub off the thin sheen of sweat that had built up, Yumi contemplated calling in sick today. This latest high had been amazing, but the crash had left her barely able to perceive anything coherently. (She had been turning the knob in the bathroom for a good few minutes before realising she wasn’t under the showerhead, and was instead molesting the door.) Billowy clouds of steam filled up the cramped bathroom, while sunlight filtered through the vapour, its yellow scattering every which way. 

After toweling herself off and getting dressed in a forgiving and comfortable outfit, consisting of a plain black tank-top, and baggy sweatpants, Yumi made her way to the kitchen, the lights overhead gradually spooling up to full brightness in accordance with the morning routine she had programmed into Ciro. The rattle of her coffeemaker lasted a few seconds. Superheating coils inside the machine heated the water to boiling point, before depositing a generous amount of fine, powdered coffee ground into it, passing it through the dark, metallic interior (on the way there, passing through an integrated supercooler which made sure it wasn’t scalding hot) and out into Yumi’s waiting cup, where it was raised to tender lips, as she sipped softly. The bitterness and warmth gave her half-awake tastebuds the kick they needed.

  
Nursing the mug, Yumi leaned against her kitchentop, taking a sip every few seconds. Caffeine after Prism was the equivalent of jumpstarting a car after a breakdown. It would work. A lot of people did it. But it would damage you if you did it a lot. However, Yumi didn’t care. Wakefulness crept in, replacing the fuzzy noise of her brain with its normal, calculated self. “Ciro? Shuffle playlist.” The AI paused momentarily to parse the request, during which the deep basslines of an obscure electronic artist faded out, to be quickly replaced by the smooth voice of Cosmo Sheldrake. Setting aside the coffee, she sighed, and picked up her pocket unit.

_Time to go to work._

___________

Dressed in a labcoat, with fresh concealer hiding her eye bags and a surgery suite at her fingertips, Yumi Amru was no longer her lazy, hungover self, but competent, and ready to work. Sterilised white covered every surface, and hanging over the prostrate form on the surgery table was a DiscSector. The unit was high-range, and arms protruded from the minimalist structure, each one holding a medical tool of some function. Gleaming blades, a spare 3D-printed organ, the works. Strapped over Yumi’s head was the functional heads-up display visor. It gave a real-time 3D model of the patient, and their internals. Her hands worked the DiscSector using a touchscreen device, expertly aspirating and then extracting a necrotic patch from their liver. This procedure was fairly routine before the advent of the surgical suite, but it had certainly made her life much easier. Dark, grisly streams of red ran out of the cavity. Patch it. Simple. And… done. Sutured and glued, the patient was carted away automatically by the automated gurney, as the DiscSector returned to its default ‘ready’ position.

Yumi took her visor off, before setting it aside and giving her temples a rub. The Prism was still poking its invading after effects into the crevices of her brain. Thankfully, the day was over. Night-shift was someone else’s responsibility, one she didn’t have to worry about. Exiting the building, she gave a cheery goodbye to her coworkers, before wrapping the thick jacket around herself, having shed the labcoat. Neon glow bled over into the soft orange of sunset, fluorescent fighting against subtle warmth. Glittering signs and Greeters winked at her from every which way. Overhead, many, many buildings towered. Skyscrapers of business conglomerates, high-rise efficiency apartments, nondescript pleasure-houses, where anyone could give in to the most carnal desires for the night, assuming they had enough in credits.

She ignored all of it, heading straight for home. Night fell, bathing Maweha in inky darkness, where the twinkling stars were drowned out by the much brighter lights of the nightlife. Every sidewalk was bustling with people and personal assistants on foot, and the highspeed transports zoomed overhead, guided by their magnetic rails, blinking through the city. Shadowy figures in alleyways leered at her, but she simply ignored them, instead triggering an artificial muscle, a nervous response that none of her watchers had.

For all the universal, learnt knowledge stored in her brain and shared with those who enlisted in Medical Education, Yumi knew that among her coworkers, the optic implant and neural circuitry she possessed were unique. By triggering this artificial reflex, she called up an interface. Only she could see it, and only she could command it. She cycled through vision modes. Not night-vision. The map interface. A waypoint, set at a specific address, popped up. Much more useful than a traditional paper map. 

Waiting in a dark, grimy alleyway, her real eye tracked the movements, the smooth paths of people coming and going. However, her artificial eye (which was a milky white, in contrast to her organic, hazel one) was busy scrolling through a Feed ; short, succinct snippets of news which would always tailor themselves to whatever the viewer was interested in. At the moment, Yumi perused an article on military-grade implants and limbs, silently pondering what life would be like with an eye that could scan with a 1-in-a-thousand sensitivity, or facial recognition, or perhaps thermal imaging, or even-

“Yumi. It’s been a while.” The voice behind her was casual and playful, almost mischievous, and nipping at the edge of hearing. The brunette stayed silent, closing both eyes, real and artificial, in an attempt to block it out. “Aw. Don’t be like that.” It was low, and lilting, mockingly mournful, yet sounding genuinely hurt. “Shut. Up.” snarled the surgeon through gritted teeth. “You don’t command me.” retorted the voice. “Besides…”

“ **Not like there’s much point talking to a hallucination**.”

**Author's Note:**

> So, what'd you think? Let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading :>


End file.
